


Victory in Anticipation

by nirejseki



Series: Victory At End [2]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), Norse Religion & Lore, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Norse Religion & Lore, Gen, M/M, prison break - Freeform, you really should read the first fic in this series before reading this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-30 09:01:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10873515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: Leonard Snart is dead and his soul has gone to Valhalla, the home of heroes, and that's the end of the story.Well.Not quite.





	1. In Valhalla

**Author's Note:**

> You should go read part one of this series before reading this fic if you want it to make sense.

Every morning, after he’s awake but before he opens his eyes, he thinks – perhaps today.

Perhaps today he’ll wake up and see a dirty off-white ceiling with a bootprint smack in the middle, like the house on Lennox Street that was always secretly his favorite, or the vast height of a warehouse roof, or even the dull unrelieved slate grey that could stand for either Iron Heights or the Waverider. 

Perhaps.

And then he opens his eyes and is blinded by the glint of golden shields, layered over each other like roof-tiles. 

Nope.

Looks like it’s just going to be another day in _fucking_ Valhalla. 

Len sighs and rolls out of bed. 

He does not like his bed, despite its fine carvings, because it was made by people who have a shit understanding of the finer arts of mattress-making – there’s a goddamn midpoint between sleeping on a lumpy set of rocks and drowning in a pile of fluff and fur – but he’s willing to admit that part of it might be his overall disappointment in the fact that he’s still _here_.

He wanders down to breakfast.

“Well met, Snare,” Ivar says, raising his – you know what, Len is going to call it a cup, despite its very obvious horn shape. He was never into Viking lore; insofar as he ever learned anything about mythology (religion?), it was about his own Judaism, a bit of Christianity (for Lisa, in case she cared – she didn’t), and maybe some Greek mythology because Xena.

He’s aware that that’s not a good basis for dealing mythology anything, but if he’d have realized it was going to be relevant to his life – or death, as it happens – he’d have _read up about it first_. 

“It’s Snart,” Len says, not for the first (or, he suspects, the last) time. “Don’t suppose anyone’s done anything about my request for cheese, have they?”

“As we’ve explained several times,” Haukr, the man sitting next to Ivar – not as broad, but twice as smart – says, rolling his eyes, “the goat Heiðrún’s udders give _mead_ , not milk.”

“Has anyone _asked_?”

“ _No_.”

“I’m going to do it myself,” Len says.

“When you inevitably get yourself killed, I’ll laugh at you tomorrow,” Haukr says practically.

“Maybe this time I’ll wake up in the right place,” Len says. He doubts it, but a guy can hope, right?

“Snare here is Jewish,” Ivar tells another person, coming over from the sleeping area yawning. “Didn’t even know you could have Jewish einherjar before him.”

“What’s Jewish?” the other man grunts.

“The ones that don’t work on the seventh day,” Len sighs. He’s had this discussion before.

“Oh, them,” the man says. “Liked them. Can’t they not eat pig or something?”

This part of the discussion, too, is repetitive. It doesn’t make it less annoying.

“Not unless it’s necessary,” Len informs him.

“Is Sæhrímnir –”

“No, the giant _boar_ roasting over the fire – though I see it’s gotten itself back _off_ the fire and has pranced back into the forest on its dainty little hooves to let you bloodthirsty assholes hunt it down for today’s dinner _again_ – before being plopped into the cook-pot is _definitely not kosher_. But since it’s the _only thing to eat_ in this place, it’s fine.”

“Huh,” new guy says, scratching himself. He obviously doesn’t care, and he moves on without another word.

Again, not unsurprising. Len has had this conversation before. _Verbatim_. 

“Is there an eight-letter word in Norse for ‘boring’?” Len asks Haukr. “Because right now I’m feeling it being ‘Valhalla’.”

“You shouldn’t blaspheme,” Ivar says, but by this point he’s gotten pretty used to Len and the admonishment isn’t quite as strong as it had been in the beginning.

“Where’s Leifr, anyway?” Len asks. He and Haukr tend to hang out a lot. “Not like he could go anywhere.”

“Tried to peep at the valkyries again,” Haukr says. 

“So, dead?”

“Yeah. Already.”

“Fucking idiot.” It’s not like the valkyries don’t come by every night to serve everybody beer (mead, if you feel like being pedantic); Leifr’s just dumb. Dumber even than Ivar, and that takes some doing.

Haukr grunts in agreement. “You coming out with us?” he asks, jerking his head towards the armory, which is primarily armed with spears and knives and other such things. 

Len makes a face. He appreciates a good knife as much as the next guy, but he doesn’t actually _like_ fighting for the sake of fighting. That’s more Mick’s game.

He misses Mick.

Len crushes that thought before it’s even formed, because he doesn’t actually want Mick to be dead anytime soon, even though his presence might be the sole thing that makes this place tolerable. Mick would probably enjoy crushing them all.

“No,” he says instead. “Going to work on my ‘fruit and vegetable’ petition. I’ve never appreciated a salad more.”

Haukr laughs and shakes his head. “You’re as crazy as old Håkon, and he’s Úlfheðinn,” he says, amused.

Len smiles the smile of someone who has no idea what the fuck that means and is increasingly tired of having to ask people to translate for him. He thinks it might mean something like berserker, but with wolves or something. 

Haukr doesn’t bother explaining, opting instead to get up from the table and head out to the fighting fields, Ivar close behind him.

Len waits until they’re gone before slinking out of the main part of the great hall. It’s a big place – possibly infinite – but he’s found a few places which aren’t so crowded that he can relax and think about what to do about his currently untenable situation.

Thinking he was going to die is one thing. Waking up and being informed that you’ve been recruited to fight in the army of your adopted father (what even), who is apparently the big tall scary guy with the one eye sitting on the throne in the middle of the room with the two ravens (what _even_ ), and then basically being ditched by said adopted father (at least that’s familiar?) to practice until you’re called upon for service of some unspecified sort - that's a whole different kettle of fish. This is _not_ Len’s idea of a good afterlife, no thank you.

Not least because Len doesn’t actually like being _of service_ to anyone. Ever. 

He doesn’t go anywhere near said big tall and scary, who’s preoccupied with other things anyway – other gods come to talk to him, sometimes, usually Tiny Hammer Guy (Thor? Thrum? something?), Mr. One-hand, or Shiny Farm Guy, and sometimes he goes out with them, but either way, Len started his time here in Valhalla by observing, and he may not know much about the god everyone calls the All Father, but he knows everything he needs to about the guy. 

Including the wisdom of not even _thinking_ his name. 

Len never liked bullies, and that applies to gods, too. The guy rubbed him the wrong way by claiming to be Len’s new father (what _even_ , part forty two) and nothing Len’s heard about since has improved his opinion even a little. Slaughter, war, manipulation, treachery – seems like this guy’s stock in trade makes him well suited to be one of Len’s criminal companions, but not necessarily one that Len would ever work with and certainly never _for_.

Reminds him a bit of his _real_ father, actually, if Lewis wasn’t a dumb fuck. Luckily for Len’s mood, he-who-shall-not-be-named-but-isn’t-nearly-as-cool-as-Voldemort-yes-even-book-seven-Voldemort is absent today.

There’s a croaking sound as one of the ravens settles down on the table next to Len.

“You are not wrong, who deem/That my days have been a dream,” Len tells him.

“That’s ‘A Dream Within A Dream’,” the raven croaks back, annoyed. “Wrong one, _again_.”

“Guess I don’t know my Poe,” Len says.

“Just make the goddamn Nevermore joke already and get it out of your system,” it says.

Clearly Muninn. Huginn actually thinks Len is pretty funny, even if he’ll never admit it – at least, he does after Len treated him to a ten minute lecture on the concept of intrusive thoughts after that one time when he’d decided to come visit while Len was taking a bath and perched on the edge of the bathtub.

Len had also accused him of being a pervert, but Huginn had responded by pointedly commenting on Greek mythology, which, fair. Not relevant, since Len’s a Jew, but fair. 

“I’m not plagiarizing Neil Gaiman,” Len informs Muninn primly. “You ever read American Gods?”

“I’m a _raven_.”

“And that’s an excuse for illiteracy?”

“I can read!”

“So you’re just lazy about keeping up with good literature, that it?”

Muninn rolls his eyes – not a thing Len knew ravens could do before he came here – and flies away out the window, presumably to go about his information collecting rounds, the nasty little snitch.

The Big Guy might have a mild inclination to keep an eye – the one he’s got left, anyway – on Len, but Len’s learned the skill of being just the right mix of incredibly well-behaved and incredibly annoying that drives jailors out of their skulls in Iron Heights, and the gods have _nothing_ on them. 

(At this point, the ravens showing up isn’t a demonstration of the Chief’s interest so much as it is their own morbid curiosity.)

Len heads towards the currently empty throne area, only to nearly get tackled by a giant husky with bad breath that’s bigger than Len is. 

“Geri, damnit,” Len says, trying not to laugh. “Geri. Geri, we’ve talked about this. We do _not_ jump on people to say hello.”

Geri licks Len’s face, entirely undeterred.

“Oh god, no, you eat _corpses_ , Geri! I can _smell it_! No! Stop! _Desist_!”

Eventually Len manages to untangle himself, mostly by virtue of spending a good ten minutes scritching Geri behind the ears until the gigantic beast rolls over onto his belly.

Then he spends another ten minutes giving Geri a belly rub, because Len is weak if you walk on four legs and are adorably fluffy. At least, he is if no one's looking. 

“Good Geri,” he praises him. “Who’s a good boy? _You’re_ a good boy, yes you are, Geri, good Geri! Such a good doggie. You’re the _best_ doggie, yes you are, my little corpse-eater, you. Oh, ugh, I’m going to have to give you another toothbrushing later, aren’t I?” Len makes a face as Geri’s breath rolls out in a miasma that stinks of eau de dead thing. “Yes, yes, I am, aren’t I? Still, not your fault your master’s a dumbass, _yes he is_. But it’s not your fault, is it, because you’re a _good_ boy.”

Geri yips happily, tail wagging like a madman. Someone told Len that Geri’s actually a wolf, which is clearly just ridiculous. Sure, he’s big, pony-sized big, but he totally looks like a slightly larger version of a husky Len saw once. Maybe a husky-Newfoundland mix or something. And have you seen the size of the goat on the roof? Now _that’s_ big. 

Admittedly, Len’s never actually seen a wolf – Central City was more coyote territory, if anything - but seriously, Geri’s way too cute. His brother Freki, too.

“Where’s your brother, huh?” Len asks, not expecting an answer. 

“Afghanistan,” Huginn says, flapping by lazily in Muninn’s wake. Huginn’s the faster of the two ravens, but sometimes, for no reason, he takes a meandering path. 

Len can sympathize. His thoughts do that sometimes, too. 

Doesn’t mean he has any patience for Huginn’s shit.

“Three words, birdie-boy,” he says. “Cognitive behavioral therapy. I’ll _thought_ the shit right out of you.”

Huginn barks a laugh and wheels out the window as well.

“I’m threatening him with Prozac next time,” Len mutters, getting up off his knees. Geri yips happily and jumps up as well, tail wagging happily. His head easily comes up to Len’s torso, even bowed.

He is a _very big doggie_.

Len absently puts his hand on Geri’s ears as he walks through the entranceway that the gods usually use. Sure, the other einherjar avoid it like the plague, but no one’s ever actually _said_ that humans weren’t supposed to go through that way.

Also, there are apples.

Len nearly broke down and cried the first time he saw the tree with the golden apples. Sweet, sweet Vitamin C. If he ever sees Mick again, he’s apologizing for all the stupid things he ever said about vegetables being optional and/or best served in ketchup form. 

But he’s not going apple-picking today – not least because Ms. Goldilocks Iðunn nearly caught him _again_ last time, and he’s not sure giving her big wide eyes and a quivering lip is going to work yet another time. 

(“You don’t understand,” he told her. “I’m craving salad. Salad!”

She covered her mouth. “That’s not an excuse,” she replied, but she’s about three seconds away from cracking.

“I’m dreaming of beets. _Beets_. And _turnips_. That’s a fate worse than death.”

She made a slightly strangled sound, struggling to keep her face from smiling.

He decided to switch tracks. “Is it true that they call you Þjazi's booty?” he asks, having heard that story just the day before by the fire.

“Yes, it’s true,” she replied, slightly puzzled. 

“Well, now I know I’m doomed,” he sighs dramatically.

“…why do you say so?”

“In the words of my mother’s people, the booty don’t lie.”

Her howls of laugher had followed him all the way out of the orchard, apples safely in hand.)

No, today he’s going to continue his explorations of the other parts of not-Midgard-that’s-Earth-it’s-the-other-one-fuck-Norse-naming-conventions. Aesirgard? Asgard? Whatever. Sure, he could limit himself to Valhalla, but he’s already figured out the pattern of the place: sleeping quarters, eating hall, bathing area, armory, repeat _ad nauseum_. It’s like someone built the whole place based on the copy-paste function. 

At least there’s some variety out here.

Today, he’s going for the big barn-like building. Going by the smell, he’s going to guess that it’s the stables. Luckily, he still has one of Iðunn’s apples left; he figures he’ll be all right. 

He doubts there’s anything valuable there – he’s already gotten bored picking leaves off of Glasir, because what’s even the point of stealing golden leaves that no one else wants? – but he believes in being thorough.

Since he apparently has forever.

Or until Ragnarök, anyway. Whatever _that_ is. People don’t like to talk about it for some reason.

Len cracks open the door and slips in, Geri padding along silently behind him.

“Well,” Len says, squinting around as his eyes adjust to the relative dark. “It’s…definitely a stable.”

He walks over to the first pen, then stop and stares. 

“Goats,” he says flatly. “ _More_ giant goats.”

The goats ignore him, as goats have a tendency to do. 

“Do you eat sweaters?” Len asks them. “Mi– my partner, he once said that goats ate everything, but that they liked his sweaters best.”

They don’t answer.

He steps back and studies them at a slight distance. “Any relation to old Heiðrún?” he asks. “You’re a lot smaller than she is, but you’re also, uh, more _male_.” He pauses and wrinkles his nose. “Oh, man, now I _really_ hope that all that she-goat mead isn’t a milk substitute, because _ew_. This is why food should come out of prepackaged plastic wrap.”

The goats continue to ignore him.

Len wonders if they have names.

Geri abruptly yips joyfully and darts ahead, into the dark of the stable. Len frowns and trots after him, only to find him happily chasing a circle around a long-suffering looking cat, which is having exactly none of it.

A very, very fluffy, very, very, _very_ large cat.

“Holy _cat_ ,” Len says, because – wow. “Look at you. If you ain’t the most _gorgeous_ kitty I’ve ever seen, I don't know what is,” he says sincerely, because the fluff. It’s so – fluffy. It’s _massive_. It’s a dire version of a Norwegian forest cat, or a Maine Coon, Len’s not sure, but he’s leaning towards Norway because, well, context. But still. The cat is as big as a small _bear_ , and the fluff has got to be a whole another bear just by itself. “You must hate rainstorms.”

“You have no idea,” a voice says from behind him.

Len manages to keep himself from jumping in surprise, and turns.

“Okay, no. No. This is a step too far. Explain this to me - why does Viking heaven have Mr. Ed?” Len asks accusingly.

The horse, giant like the rest of them, well above a normal horse’s size and Len _has_ seen horses before so he knows, brays a laugh. “I like that,” it – he? Okay, yep, definitely a he, this is 100% a stallion and not a gelding and also why does Len do this to himself – says. “Mr. Ed. A talking horse, I assume?”

“Old television program,” Len says resentfully. “No one here even knows what television is.”

“There aren’t really a lot of new einherjar these days,” the horse says, shrugging. Given how huge it is, there’s a lot of shrugging going on there. Whole muscle groups are involved.

“How many hands are you?” Len asks, studying him. “I don’t actually know how big a ‘hand’ is, but I could probably math it backwards.”

The horse brays again. “I don’t think anyone’s ever counted, honestly,” he says when he’s done snickering. “I like you.”

“Thanks, Ed.”

“Ed?”

“Well, you haven’t given me any other name to call you by,” Len points out. “Not like there are any nameplates either.”

“Good point,” the horse says. “But no, I like Ed. Keep going with that.” 

“Gee, thanks. And what should I call Goats 1 and 2? They’re one short for the Billy Goats Gruff.”

Ed snickers. “Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr,” he says. “Teeth-barer and teeth-grinder, respectively."

“ _Really_?” Len says. He doesn’t mean to be doubtful, but they’re, well…kind of placid. “That’s like naming your Pekingese ‘Bruiser’. Unless they’ve been turned into a vampire, because in that case, name away. Still pissed they never gave him a name in the movie…”

“I don’t even want to understand what twists your minds just took,” Ed says, but he’s definitely amused. “You know, I haven’t said that about anyone for years; you should be complimented.”

“I successfully piss off Huginn and Munnin on a regular basis,” Len informs Ed. “I _am_ complimented.”

Ed snickers. 

“So, does the cat have a name?”

“Cats, plural,” Ed corrects. 

Len immediately scans the area for a second giant cat.

“Rafters.”

Len looks up.

“That’s a lot of fluff to balance on one rafter,” he says admirably. 

“They don’t have names, I’m afraid,” Ed says. “Freyja just never bothered.”

“Actually, that makes sense,” Len says thoughtfully. “They _are_ cats. Cats are above such petty things as names; they are merely kind enough to sometimes answer to descriptive terms barely worthy of their worship.”

He’s joking, of course, but he swears the cat that Geri is trying (unsuccessfully) to convince to play with him gives him an approving look.

“Right,” Ed says, shaking his mane. “You’re going to give them an ego.”

“They’re cats, they already know they’re superior to us,” Len says dismissively. “I’m going to be stereotypical and call you Rumpleteazer, okay?” he asks the one ignoring Geri. “Likes to create chaos with her partner, Mungojerrie, who can be Mr. Rafters up there.”

She considers this for a long minute and purrs approvingly.

“I think that’s the furthest any man has gotten with Freyja’s cats since I’ve met them,” Ed observes. “Well done. What _will_ be your next trick? Hoop-jumping? Fire-breathing?”

“I like you,” Len tells Ed. “You’re kind of a dick. I appreciate that in people.” He pauses. “And horses, apparently.”

Ed shuffles his legs in mock-embarrassment, which makes Len have to rub his eyes because he would have sworn – 

“Yes, there are eight,” Ed says. 

“Thought I was seeing double,” Len says gratefully. 

“You should probably get back,” Ed says with a sigh. “They’ll eventually notice you’re missing, and time in the Hall works differently from out here. It’ll be almost evening for them.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Len offers. “And here, something to remember me by till then.”

He pulls the apple out of his pocket and offers it to Ed.

Ed stares at it for a long moment.

“What?” Len asks, a little uncomfortable. “I thought horses liked apples.”

“We do,” Ed says. “It’s just – that’s a – you know what, never mind.” He leans forward and lips at the apples, picking it up delicately with his teeth before crunching into it with all sounds of evident delight. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Len says. “Should I bring some Sæhrímnir-meat for the Hammerhead Hannigans tomorrow?”

“…they’d probably like some bones,” Ed allows. “I see that you’re very frustrated by no one getting your references.”

“I’m bunking with people who think similes are the height of humor,” Len says sulkily. “They even like puns! It’s not as much fun if someone’s not groaning.”

“I knew someone once who’d like you very much,” Ed remarks. “Now go.”

“Yeah, yeah. Geri, heel,” Len calls, whistling sharply.

Geri bounds over and Len rewards him with scritches. 

“…just so you know, you disturb me greatly,” Ed says. 

Len snickers and heads back to the hall, ducking back in just in time for Huginn to fly through the window like a bat out of hell.

Len wonders what the news is, but opts to go help himself to some Sæhrímnir, because it has in fact been a while since he’s eaten. Oh, look, they’re having it ‘boiled in the cook-pot’ style. _Again_.

“Have you considered alternate forms of preparation?” he asks Andhrímnir.

“Don’t start with that again,” the god-cook replies. “You don’t even know what a fricassee _is_.”


	2. Prison Break

“How do you tolerate the tedium?” Len asks Ed. “Do you even _do_ anything?”

He’s sitting by Ed’s stall, legs outstretched and currently covered by Mungojerrie, who has flopped belly-down on Len’s legs in a not-so-subtle I’m-above-this-really request for scritches. In fairness, Len is very good at scritches. 

He’s relaxed into just stroking Mungojerrie’s fur in long, with-the-grain strokes, which is getting him a nice, steady, low-level purr that sounds not unlike a motorcycle engine with a crappy muffler at full blast.

Len’s feeling terribly nostalgic about it. Mick had one of those that he drove near into the ground. 

“The All-father doesn’t really ride out that much anymore,” Ed replies. “So yes, it can sometimes get – dull.”

“You’re telling me. Why don’t you just run off or something?”

“I have my reasons to stay,” Ed says obliquely. “You’ve been here all day; aren’t you concerned?”

“Nah, I’m apparently banned from the dining table for a week.”

“The cheese protest again?”

“No, Huginn caught me trying to run a census,” Len says. “Not encouraged, apparently. Who knew?”

“I’ll bite,” Ed says. “ _Why?_ ”

“There’s gotta be some other Jews that got lost,” Len says grimly. “I’m even willing to take Christians at this point. _Anyone_ who can sympathize.”

“Find anything?”

“A medieval-era monk who fell in love with a Viking. Apparently he eventually convinced the Viking to convert, but they both ended up here when they died anyway. Happy as clams.”

“Ouch.”

“Yep. I’m about three minutes away from standing on a table and shouting that I need a minyan.”

Ed is quiet for a moment. “Isn’t that the one when someone’s just died –”

“ _Yes_ ,” Len says. “I didn’t say it was a _good_ plan.”

Ed snickers.

“Go back,” he advises. “They’ll have forgotten about it by tonight.”

“All those head injuries have to pile up eventually,” Len agrees maliciously, but – after some convincing in Mungojerrie’s direction – he goes. He wants to accustom the crowd to not seeing him much during the day, not get in trouble for not being there. 

Sure enough, no one minds him joining up with them again, though he knows he’d get into trouble if he tried the census business again. 

He takes his plate of Sæhrímnir-meat – boiled, what a surprise – and goes to sit by the fire. May as well listen to a story while he’s at it, even if they tend to be both gory and boring, which was not a combination he would have called before this.

It’s another Loki story. Len could really learn to like the guy; he’s clearly ten times smarter than the rest of the gods put together, and yet, for no reason in particular, he keeps getting shit on by the rest of them.

This time, he’s apparently a salmon. Why a salmon? Len has no idea, having shown up right in the middle of the story, but apparently he’s now a _captured_ salmon. Sucks to be him.

“Now Loki was taken truceless, and was brought with them into a certain cave,” the speaker says, his eyes glinting with glee. “Thereupon they took three flat stones, and set them on edge and drilled a hole in each stone.”

“With what drills?” Len asks. “Small? Large? Why three stones exactly?”

He gets three elbows to the ribs.

“The ways of the gods are mysterious,” the speaker says, glaring at Len. “And so the gods came, and brought forth Loki’s twin sons –”

Len frowns. He hasn’t heard of twin sons before. He’s heard of the horse story – he hadn’t had the heart (or the spine) to ask Ed for confirmation of that one – and something-something Father of Monsters, though he doesn’t know the details. One of them is a wolf, apparently. 

“What’re they like?” he wonders aloud. “Horse-ish? Wolf-ish? Dragonfly-ish, just for variety?”

“The most human of Loki’s brood, the children of Sigyn his wife,” Haukr hisses back. “Now _shush_.”

“ _And then_ ," the skald continued, glaring a bit, "the gods brought forth Loki’s twin sons, Vali and Narfi. Their mother followed behind, wailing her grief, for she knew what would come to them, her sons, torn from her bosom –”

“They were _toddlers_?”

Ouch. Elbows, especially armored elbows, are sharp.

“And Loki silver-tongue lost his head at the sight of these, calling forth threats upon the Aesir, the curse of his line to fall upon he who dared harm his kin. But the Aesir were too cunning, for they changed Vali into the form of a wolf, mad and ravening, and it was he who tore asunder Narfi his brother –”

Len drops his plate.

Those _fuckers_.

“– and the Aesir took his entrails and bound Loki upon the rocks with the bowels torn forth from his frost-cold son –”

Len finds himself halfway across the room and punching the skald in the face before he knows what he’s doing.

“Snare!” Ivar cries out. “What are you _doing_?”

What is he doing? Just because that sounds so much like Mick’s story – the insanity coming on him, thinking he’s a wolf, unleashed upon his twin brother that he loved so very much by some bitch who either wasn’t paying attention or didn’t care, and mourning ever since – and just because they’re all _enjoying_ it, listening to some poor kid be used as a tool to murder his sibling, that still doesn’t mean he should start shit in the middle of the golden hall while surrounded by angry einherjar.

“Um,” Len say. “Getting into the spirit of things? Fighting and all that, right?”

There’s a tense moment of silence, and then Leifr bursts out laughing. “Oh, Snare,” he says. “One day we will teach you the proper ways. The fighting-time is _earlier_ ; not at the fire!”

“Oops,” Len says. It’s not a very sincere ‘oops’, but it’s the best he’s got right now.

“Is this how your people, the Jews, do it?” Leifr asks, still laughing, and Len sees everyone start to relax around him. Len’s made himself something of a reputation for strangeness, after all, and unfamiliarity is amusing enough in this place to merit a laugh instead of a deadly reproach. 

“We have whole dinners in which we do nothing but talk about people fighting,” Len says, honestly enough. “I’ll tell you about Hannukah at some point. Whole holiday about guerrilla warfare and also lighting a lamp.”

“A lamp!” Leifr hoots. “Well done, Snare, well done. But sit, and let the skald finish.”

“No, I don’t want to interrupt any further,” Len says, still feeling rather disgusted by the whole thing. “You have fun.”

He slinks off, irritated. He doesn’t care how that particular story ends.

Fuck this, he wants _out_. 

Fuck this, he wants _Mick_.

He puts his head in his hands. 

He’d thought –

God.

He hadn’t really been thinking, to be honest.

He known that he couldn’t let Mick take that hit in the Oculus, not when he’d just gotten him back. Not when Mick had fought his way through time itself to come back to his side. 

Even if Mick would probably be happier here than Len. 

Len would be willing to stay here, if only Mick were here. It could make up for taking him away from 2046, maybe. 

But alone –

He can’t.

If Mick had died – 

If Mick had died, and he’d been stuck here, Len would have come after him, one way or the other.

Len opens his eyes again. 

Right. Time to stop moping around and get down to business.

Valhalla’s nothing more than another prison, and prisons – well. Breaking out of prisons is something of a specialty.

Len gets up and goes to the stable.

“Ed,” he says. “I need your help. I’m breaking out.”

“Len,” the horse replies, bowing his head until he could look Len right in the eye. “I thought you’d never ask.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Escaping Asgard without the notice of the Aesir is a master-level skill, but it _is_ possible,” Ed tells him. “I don’t know the way myself, but I know how you can find out – and once you find the path, I can tell you the challenges you’re going to face using it.”

“I can handle it,” Len replies, his heart and mind set.

Of course, he may have underestimated the _absurdity_ involved.

“A squirrel,” Len says flatly, some ten minutes later. “The only person who knows how to escape from Asgard is a _squirrel_.”

Ed snickers, no doubt at the expression on Len’s face. “I told you, it’s not going to be easy. The squirrel – his name is Ratatoskr – is the only creature that yet lives that remembers the crooked ways to and fro. There used to be more, but the Aesir exterminated them.”

Len blinks. “When you say ‘exterminated’…”

“I mean _exterminated_ ,” Ed says, his mirth falling away. “There were once many creatures of magic in all the earths – jotunn and dragons, dwarves and elves of all types: dökkálfar and ljósálfar and svartálfar. There are virtually none left.”

“The Aesir did that? Why?”

“Why else? Ragnarök, of course.”

Len opens his mouth to ask what that is, but Ed – who’s clearly having some strong feelings about this – tosses his mane angrily and continues. “The creatures were too small to be written into prophecy, you see; too little, too lowly. But because of that, the Aesir couldn’t know if they would be with them or against them in the end, and they decided it wasn’t worth the risk.”

“Wait,” Len says. “You telling me they committed genocide ‘cause they weren’t _sure_?”

“Precisely.”

“Nice gods they’ve got here.”

Ed snorts. “Have you heard the stories of the Vanir yet?” he asks. “Freyja’s people?”

“Freyja and Freyr, yeah. They come by sometimes. Very –” Len tries to find a word that isn’t a synonym for over-the-top gaudy. Freyja was pretty and all, and she clearly had good taste in cats, but the few glimpses he’d gotten of her were more jewelry than person. “– shiny. They’re, uh, Vanir?”

“Yes, they are, along with their father, Njörð.”

“How’s Vanir different from Aesir?”

“It isn’t, not really,” Ed says. “They were family, once, long ago; the kin of Ymir. Both warlike people – the Aesir in their stronghold, the Vanir on the plains – and they came to war against each other, a war that they settled by the exchange of hostages. Njörð and his children went to the Aesir, while Hœnir and Mimir were to the Vanir sent.”

“I’m guessing that didn’t work out?”

“Hœnir was an idiot and Mimir secretive. The Aesir knew that they were doing, but when the Vanir found out – they’d actually obeyed the truce, you see, and sent their best – they cut off his head –”

“Which one?”

“Mimir. Hœnir they just kicked out. They sent Mimir’s head back as a warning, but the All Father revived it to receive its wisdom.”

“…wait. You're telling me that big, tall, and scary has the resurrected decapitated head of the man he – possibly deliberately – sent to his death in a jar somewhere to ask questions from whenever he feels like it.”

“You know, it’s a lot more disturbing when you put it that way, and it was disturbing enough already,” Ed remarks. “Anyway, that isn’t actually the point.”

“What _is_ the point?”

“After the trade, the truce endured for some time – the invention of mead around that time helped – but after that the Aesir began to rise in power and the Vanir began to fade.”

“Why do I get the feeling this story ends in genocide?”

“Slavery, forced assimilation, and _then_ extermination.”

“Technically, all of those count as genocide,” Len says, making a face. “No comment from the Freyr-Frejyas?”

“Would you?”

“Hell yes.”

Ed rolls his eyes. “Would most people?”

Len makes another face.

“Exactly.”

“So the Aesir are dangerous assholes,” Len says. “Got it. What’s your point?”

“My _point_ is, you’re going up against creatures whose powers are beyond your imagination –”

“Heard it before, done it before,” Len says dismissively. “I’ve seen them run about; I’d bet on the Flash any day.”

“The…Flash?”

“Metahuman,” Len says. “All difference types of powers – speed, strength, weather, teleportation, mood control, you name it. You haven’t heard of them?”

“Not many einherjar recently, as I said,” Ed says thoughtfully. “Interesting. I’ll have to think about that. But in the meantime, you need to talk to Ratatoskr.”

“The squirrel. I can’t believe it.”

“Says the man who tied bows in the hair of two bear-sized cats?”

“It’s a giant _squirrel_ ,” Len says, unimpressed. “We have squirrels in Central City. Rats with big tails, and not as smart.”

Ed snickers. “You still have to find out how to catch him long enough to get him to answer your questions. He’s fast.”

“Oh, stopping someone fast is practically my _day job_ ,” Len drawls. 

It turns out the weird wooden arch things scattered around outside are actually tree roots for a tree so big no one can see it, which makes so incredibly little sense that Len has no choice but to accept it as truth. 

The squirrel - it's a literal goddamn man-sized squirrel - is, indeed, quite fast, but it's definitely no Flash.

Of course, he doesn't have his cold gun. But the cold gun's just a tool, in the end. He doesn't need it.

First, though, there's the polite option.

"Hey, you!" Len calls to the furry blur climbing down the tree roots.

As expected, there's no response. 

Plan B it is.

Len turns to Geri, who is waiting very patiently by his side. "Hey, Geri," Len says, and pulls a piece of Saemhirir tongue - Geri's favorite part - out of his pocket. "Who wants a treat?"

Geri's tail starts wagging and his jaw drops open in a canine grin.

"Who does? You do? _You_ want a treat?" Len continues, keeping a careful eye on the root. Observation over the last day has shown him that the squirrel will be back in thirty two seconds. "Because you're such a good doggie?"

Geri's grin grows. He knows this game. He bends his knees, readying for a pounce, eyes fixed firmly on the meat that Len is dangling in front of his face.

Ratatoskr bounds up from under the root on his busy way up.

Len spins and pitches the tongue right at the squirrel.

Geri yips in the sort of overwhelmingly joyous abandon that only members of the canine family can manage and leaps.

Ratatoskr screeches when Geri hits him full-on, knocking both of them off the root and onto the ground. Len meanders over to where Geri is licking up all the remnants of the piece of tongue.

"Get off of me, you mangy flea-ridden carrion-eater!" Ratatoskr is yelling.

He doesn't sound a thing like Alvin the Chipmunk or Chip and Dale; Len's almost disappointed. Disney lied - what a surprise.

Len waits until Geri starts to get up off of Ratatoskr to say, very pleasantly, "Geri, lie down."

Geri promptly flops down, squashing the squirrel in place.

"Who the fuck are you?" Ratatoskr demands. 

"I'm an einherjar," Len says dismissively. "No one of note."

"The All Father's wolf obeys you, you can't be nobody," the squirrel screeches. It has a very irritating voice. 

"Geri doesn't obey me," Len says. "Geri takes my suggestions, because Geri's a good doggie. Isn't that right, Geri?"

Geri yips happily when Len runs his hand over his head and scratches a little behind his ears. Ratatoskr watches, eyes narrowed.

"Right. Whatever. What do you want to make him get off?" Ratatoskr asks, getting straight to the point. Smart squirrel – what an anomaly.

"I hear you know all the ways in and out of this place," Len says. "One of the few left."

"They need me to give 'em updates, that’s all, that’s all I do," Ratatoskr whines. "Níðhöggr’s progress is slow, same as always; Veðrfölnir doesn't see nothing new, same as before."

"Good to know," Len says. "I'd say I care, but I really don't."

"What do you want, then, if not to show off your skills to the All Father and by so doing earn praise?"

"I want to get out of here," Len says.

"What," Ratatoskr says.

"Out. Of. Here. Back to Midgard. It's not that hard."

"Well, if someone robbed your grave -" Ratatoskr says, widening his eyes in a bad mockery of innocence.

"First, I don't got a grave; I went up in flames," Len says flatly. "Second, I don't want to be a draugr – which I _have_ heard of. If I did, I'd be talking to the valkyries, but for some reason turning into a rotting zombie-warrior sounds incredibly unappealing, thanks. I want to go back, whole and entire, to Midgard."

"Lot of people want that."

"Not as many as you'd think," Len says, not without some disgust at the memories of those men who let Heiðrún’s mead wash away all memory of absent friends and family. "And what of it, anyway? I'm the one asking you."

"What makes you think I know a way to do it?" Ratatoskr snorts. "I run messages up and down the tree, that's all I do. No more, no less. It's a humble job. I'm no wise-man, who knows -"

"And yet," Len interjects, because he knows the start of a rant when he hears one, "a reliable source tells me you know the crooked paths."

Ratatoskr goes quiet. "The crooked paths," he says after a long minute. "It's been a very long time since anyone's asked about those. Your source must be a brave one indeed, einherjar, to speak of such things."

"You know 'em or not?"

"I do," Ratatoskr says. "But it's useless to you. Only one with the All Father's token may pass."

"But -"

"He who last walked the crooked paths bore within him a blood-bind, blood-brotherhood, and the paths of Asgard could deny him nothing, least of all entry," Ratatoskr says. "The Aesir have made their stronghold tight, as the years have gone by. I'm afraid you're stuck. You won't even be able to see the doors."

He catches Len's expression. "I'm serious! It's not that I _won't_ help you, I would if I could, but without something of - of _his_ \- to signify that you're an accepted traveler, you won't even be able to _see_ the passageway at all. Totally invisible. Can't be see, touched, the whole shebang."

Something of _his_. That didn't sound so bad.

"How about you tell me the way," Len says. "And I'll worry about getting myself a token."

Ratatoskr eyes Len strangely, staying still even as Geri finally rolls off of him and goes to nuzzle into Len's side instead. "You remind me of someone," he finally says. "Someone who was nothing by a belly full of trouble and two lungs filled with hot air and ego. He who last walked the paths, in fact."

Len arches his eyebrow. "That a good thing or a bad thing?"

Abruptly, Ratatoskr grins. "Neither," he says. "But it means I'm going to help you. Now listen up - I'm not going to fall for the same trick twice, so you'd better get the path memorized before you go and do anything dumb."

He pauses. "Dumber than what you're already doing, anyway.”

“Just tell me what you know,” Len says. “I know it’s dumb, I’m doing it anyway.”

“They’d better appreciate what you’re doing for them, whoever you’re going back for,” Ratatoskr mutters. "Hope they're worth it."

“They are,” Len says. “They really are.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"- and once I've got the token from the big guy, I'll be able to find the sideways door, which is three widdershins turns from the root," Len concludes. "What's widdershins?"

"Counter-clockwise," Ed says. "What next?"

"The sideways door apparent leads to the crooked path, in which I need to walk, uh, the inverse of the distance between Skaði’s domain and Njörð’s."

"Not atypical for one of the All Father's ways, but still, that's remarkably unhelpful," Ed observes.

"You think?" Len rolls his eyes. "Luckily, the mountain ice queen and the sea god is a story I've heard around the fire - I assume the inverse of the distance is them together, right? A mountain stream?"

"...yes," Ed says, looking startled. "Yes, quite."

"Always was good at riddles," Len says with satisfaction. "'I got no hinge, key, or lid, yet within me a golden treasure is hid' - got it on the first try, even without Gollum's help, and I don’t even _eat_ eggs on a regular basis."

"That'll be a useful skill," Ed agrees, looking mystified. "Gollum?"

"Magic ring that tempts people into greed and possessiveness and eventually death because it’s evil?"

"...Fafnir and the cursed ring of Andvari? What about it?"

"Tolkien is better than the original," Len says, because he has feelings about this. "Anyway, once I walk the crooked path, I have to choose between the low road and the high -"

"Take the low," Ed says. "You might survive the cold of going too close to the ruins of Jötunheim and the land of Niflheim beyond them, but you'll never survive the heat of Muspelheim."

"Agreed; cold's more my style. My partner's the hothead. So I go down that way until I end up..." he hesitates. "This part I didn't quite get. I get to where the end begins?"

Ed huffs in his inimitable horsey manner, sounding almost contemplative. "Don't worry about that. It won't be an issue."

"What is it, though?"

"A prison," Ed says. "Where they keep in a cage what none who wish to can release. But if you can manage to get there, you can get directions to Midgard -"

"Good."

"- provided you aren't first spotted by Heimdall, hunted down by Tyr's dogs, captured by Skaði’s traps, or lose your way for eternity in the cracks between the worlds."

"So,” Len says after a long moment. “What you're telling me is that you're an optimist.” 

Ed whinnies in amusement.

"Either way," the horse finally says, "you still need to get a token from the All Father. I'd suggest grabbing a spoon from his table -"

"-except he doesn't eat," Len finishes. He'd noticed. "And his cup would be immediately missed."

"Something he doesn't notice immediately would be best," Ed agrees. "I should warn you now, though; he was a god of trickery - I wouldn't count on being able to pick-pocket him. No matter how good you are."

"Watch me," Len says, but his bravado fades when he returns to the halls of Valhalla. He doesn't know what it is about - _him_ \- but Len can't even look at him too long. Perhaps it's something about the idea of the All Father, adopted father to all the einherjar, but he rubs Len the wrong way - all the wrong ways. 

Len finds his breath cut short, his shoulders instinctively bowing forward, his instincts dull and his reactions slow. There's a lot of his dad in the All-Father, and he hates every last piece of it.

He keeps his eyes peeled for a day, then two, then three, but he can't find a way to convince his feet to go anywhere near the throne. 

Then the All-Father goes away, some business of his own, and Len can breathe easy again.

Still no token though.

A token that the All Father won't notice he's missing.

Something small. Easily replaceable.

Something so insignificant it will be forgotten as soon as it disappears.

Out of sight, out of - 

Hmm.

Now _that's_ an idea.

No idea if it will work, of course, but it’s worth a shot.

Len positions Geri by the window and Freki a little further, and he listens.

The familiar flapping of black wings is not audible from a distance. The even more familiar bitching, however, is.

"Hi, Huginn," Len says, waving as the first of the All Father’s ravens swoops into Valhalla, back from his nightly rounds. "How's life as a snitch?"

"Bite me," the raven says, snickering meanly.

"Listen here," Len says, jumping up and heading over. "I want to have a word with -"

He trips over Geri, and takes a flying leap, hands outstretched and -

Muninn, just flown in through the window after his quicker brother, squawks like a parrot when he's surprised by a flailing human landing on him. 

It's _hilarious_.

Freki, who's only sometimes obedient and whose love for puppy piles is beyond belief, leaps up from where he was lying within careful line of sight and throws himself into the pile.

By the time Len untangles himself, Muninn is swearing like a sailor, Freki and Geri are chasing each other's tails, and Huginn is laughing hysterically. 

The other einherjar aren't much better.

"Snare," Haukr chokes. "Is that why you never join us in battle? You're clumsy?"

"Shut up, I've seen you fight," Len says, ducking his head in implicit concession.

Leifr, Ivar and Haukr roar with laughter and drag him off to dinner. Len lets himself be dragged, keeping an eye on Muninn, but it doesn't look like Munnin has noticed that anything's the matter. 

Len spends the night drinking and staggers to Ed's stall the next day. 

"Hard at work, I see," Ed says, amused.

"Don't speak so loud," Len says. "Also, for the love of – you know what, never mind – _please_ tell me one of Muninn's feathers counts as one of the All Father’s tokens."

"How in the world did you get _that_?!"

"The joys of slapstick," Len says with a sigh. “Will it work?”

“With that, you can see anything the All Father sees,” Ed says, tossing his head, mane rippling down his back. “Well done.”

Len grunts, rubbing his temples as he finishes sobering up. The healing factor of the dead is something to be feared. "Any thoughts on how to survive Skaði’s traps? I have an idea for the hounds – and maybe for Heimdall."

"She's an ice goddess," Ed says doubtfully. "Dress warm?"

“Thanks, Ed.”

“Listen, there’s a reason the einherjar only ever go back to Midgard as draugr, and it’s not because they all feel like sticking around, okay?” Ed says. “They don’t _survive_.”

Len nods, because he’d be an idiot if he didn’t acknowledge that what’s at stake is quite literally his soul, since he’s already lost his life. “You think I’ll make it?” he asks, wondering.

Ed ducks his large head in a nod. “I think you will,” he says. “Like I said, you remind me of someone – and you’ve kept your head a hell of a lot better than most of the einherjar. You remember who you are, what you want; you haven’t forgotten it all in the joy of preparing for battle.”

Len sneers. He always figured that the other einherjar were a bit too complacent; it surprises him not at all that it was by design. “Why me, do you think?”

“I have some theories,” Ed says, tossing his mane. “But you don’t care about that; you care about getting out.”

“Damn right.”

“Take some apples,” Ed advises. “They’ll give you strength if you eat them as you go.”

Len nods. He’s about to turn and go, but he hesitates half a second, then takes a step forward, towards Ed’s pen. He holds out his hand to Ed, who noses at it solemnly. “Thanks,” he says.

“Good luck,” Ed says. “What are you planning, to avoid Heimdall, the all-seeing? The hounds of Tyr?”

“I’m going to defeat them with one of the great mysterious forces of the universe,” Len says and goes to find himself a cat.

Two cats, to be precise.

Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer are currently reclining on the roof of the stable. They are currently so woven together that Len suspects they may be defying the laws of physics. Maybe something in quantum?

(It wouldn’t surprise him – these _are_ cats.)

“Hello,” he says to them, having crawled his way to the roof one painful finger-hold at a time. “I need your help.”

Two sets of yellow eyes fix on him.

Len really, really hopes this works. 

“They say that this watchman of the gods sees everything, if he looks,” Len says. “Everything and anything. But I know better.”

Four unblinking pairs of eyes continue to regard him.

“I never had a cat,” Len says. “But I took care of some that lived nearby. And no matter what I did, when I turned around, one would be there. Through cold and dark and locked doors, there they were, and I never spotted ‘em, and I’m good at spotting. Nothing spots a cat that doesn’t want spotting. I’m willing to bet it’s the same for you, too.”

He swallows, then. This is the tough part to say, even if it’s true. “I want to go home,” he tells them. “I want my – my partner. I need him. And to do that, I need your help. If you don’t mind.”

Rumpleteazer yawns, a big long movement, and then she gets up and pads over to where Len’s sitting. Mungojerrie stretches out his paws, back arching, and then he, too, comes over. They crawl up on him – he chokes a little, because they’re freaking _huge_ \- but they don’t crush him with their massive paws even as they loll around over him, deep, low purrs coming from their chests.

When they come off of him, Len’s covered in cat fur from head to toe. Despite the splotches of color on both cats, the fur on him is all grey, and even when he moves his arms, it doesn’t fall off. 

All cats are grey in the dark. 

He looks down at his clothing, then up at the pair of cats.

They purr at each other, pretending not to look at him. They’re above actually doing people favors, of course. 

Len grins and, because he is who is he is, he decides to press his luck.

“Don’t suppose you two can keep the Billies from following me when I go,” he drawls, nodding down at the barn where the goats are penned right next to a worrisome set of harnesses. 

The cats grin back.

Len goes, collects the pack he’d prepped for himself with clothing and food and apples, drops the feather into his pocket and, armed with little more than his luck and his wits, heads into the unknown.


	3. Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: references to genocide, torture, animal cruelty; Norse mythology appropriate torture shown on-screen

Len’s so cold he can feel it in his bones. 

He’s lost feeling in his fingers long ago. He used every minute of the head start he got, walking the crooked ways in the shadows where even Heimdall has trouble seeing him, but cat-fur-cloak or no, he can’t hide forever and eventually the alarm was raised. The hounds caught his trail some while ago – he’s not sure how long, time doesn’t seem to work right here in the place between the worlds, the mountain stream that drizzles down the gigantic tree roots that Ed called Ygg-something – but they only found the clothing he took with him in the pack. He left it half in a frozen lake, the one with the strange moving shapes under the water. Dead shapes. 

Draugr, if such a term can be applied to creatures that weren’t human to begin with. 

Jötunheim is – 

It’s a graveyard.

There had been some glorious years in Len’s youth when his father had been in jail and his mother still alive; she’d enrolled him in the Hebrew school down the way at the local Reform temple to keep him busy in the afternoons until she finished work. He’d picked up what smatterings of religion he knew about there. 

They’d covered the Holocaust, the Shoah, because of course they did – they watched the movies, heard the stories from people’s families, saw the pictures. Every year on remembrance day. 

That experience is the only reason he can look upon the ruins of a world murdered in whole and keep moving.

There are bones lying unburied in the fields. Buildings torn open like crabshells to get at the people hiding within. An entire capital city razed to the ground.

Some of the bones are very small.

Others are gigantic. 

Not all look human.

It doesn’t matter. They were people, and they are dead, and from what Ed says, it was all to prevent some sort of stupid _prophecy_. Disgust doesn't even begin to describe Len's feelings on the subject, but he can't think about that now. He has to focus on surviving.

It’s very cold. 

Ed says that the coldest place in the universe – the Norse universe, anyway; Len thinks the deepest, darkest parts of space spotted by the Hubble might beg to differ – is called Niflheim, and that before, it was confined into its own realm. He said there was a chance it might be bleeding over into Jötunheim.

Bleeding is the wrong word.

_Flooding_ might be a better one.

The icy water is seeping in everywhere he looks, turning every low point into mud that he has to trudge through, a roiling mist creeping in at the edges of his vision that freezes everything it touches to the point of shattering, and it’s so cold. It’s so incredibly cold.

There’s ice on his fingertips.

Len tries not to look at them. He knows very well what the penalties of frostbite are, and his hands –

He gave up one hand for Mick before.

He’ll give up both to get back to him if he has to.

The apples Iðunn gave him are helping; he’s spacing out the bites. They warm him up inside and let him keep going, but even with the strict rationing he’s been imposing on himself, he’s running out. 

The crooked paths are long and twisted, and he’s so very cold. He’s walking along the stream – it keeps trying to lose him, quick turns and dips through ditches, doubling back at odd points that definitely weren’t doing that when he was looking ahead earlier – and he has to keep his eyes firmly fixed to the ground lest he run into an ice-trap, which is like a pothole but with a Venus flytrap’s teeth made of sharp icicles. 

He’s pretty sure he heard one of the hounds fall into one, pained whimpers and yips as the ice spread over the dog’s legs, inching up his body toward his heart in veins of ice. 

The one-handed war-god hadn’t cared.

There’d been a loud crack of sound, and then there hadn’t been any more wounded noises.

Len wishes he had his gun with him. He’d show the bastard what it means to be cold.

There’s a cave in sight; the stream leads straight there, almost grudgingly, like it’s annoyed that Len’s gotten this far. 

At this point, Len just hopes the cave is warmer than where he is now. He can’t hear the dogs anymore – though he’s not sure if that’s because they’re no longer following him or because his ears have frozen over. It’s taking everything he has to keep moving.

He swallows the last piece of apple he has and forces his legs to move, one after the other. 

The cave remains stubbornly far away, or maybe he’s just moving slow.

His hands have stopped shaking. He remembers that that’s a bad sign, but he’s not sure he remembers why. 

He’s almost there.

He’s almost –

The cave entrance is right in front of him.

Len reaches out with frozen fingers and manages to wrap his hand around the stone.

He pulls himself forward –

Hands shoot out from within the cave and pull him in.

Len gasps in negation, both from the idea of being caught and from the terrible warm emanating from those hands, the warmth of cave, the _burning_ warmth, the –

“Hey, Lenny,” a familiar voice says.

Len squints up at a blur that is coalescing into an even more familiar face.

“ _Mick?_ ” he asks, scarcely daring to believe it.

“Yeah,” Mick says gruffly, his hands like brands on Len’s frozen shoulders. “It’s me. I came to get you, but it looks like you got most of the way out all by yourself.”

He pauses.

“What’s with all the cat hair?”

Len laughs till his eyes fill with tears.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mick was kind enough to bring Len’s parka with him, which – once the cat fur is brushed off, and it comes off so easily now, when before no mud or wind or branches could dislodge it – he wraps around Len’s shoulders and then slides his arms around him, helping him warm up. They sit at the entrance of the cavern and Len leans in, tucks his head under Mick’s chin the way he hasn’t in years.

Len watches the ice drip off his fingers with fascination.

His fingers still work. He has no idea how he got that lucky.

Mick very considerately blows on his fingers as they defrost. 

Len permits it until his brain defrosts enough to realize what Mick’s doing, at which point he flips Mick off.

“How’d you survive Jötunheim?” Mick asks, leaning his chin against Len’s head.

“Cat fur to hide me from sight; clothing to distract the hounds,” Len says. “Golden apples to keep me going.”

Mick nods.

They sit in silence for a few minutes.

There’s a thought wiggling in the back of Len’s mind. He stays still, stays quiet, and lets it come forward until it’s loud enough for him to hear.

Then he asks, “How’d you know about Jötunheim? How’d you get here, anyway? Where _is_ here?”

Mick hesitates, which is unlike him.

“I think,” he says slowly. “I think – it’s time for you to meet my family. My parents.”

And he takes Len by the hand, urging him to stand up, and Mick leads him, hand-in-hand, deeper into the great cavern, past the stalactites and the rock.

Igneous rock. 

Almost like those videos he’d seen as a kid, educational ones. The inside of a volcano.

And inside –

There’s a man.

“Fuck,” Len says, because that’s just obscene. The man’s half naked, clothing in tatters; he’s splayed out on his back, his arms bound down, his legs bound down, all on three enormous stones, and above him there is a tree with a frankly enormous snake with glistening fangs fully extended, thick gobs of poison dripping off of them in a steady stream, like a leaky faucet. A woman sits by his side, her legs splayed out in exhaustion, and she holds out a mostly-filled bowl with scarred hands to catch the poison before it hits the man’s face. His face is scarred, too, but even as Len watches the scars are sinking back into his skin, little by little. His hair is red, and his face –

His face has Mick’s facile expressions, his sharp chin. Mick’s broad jawline Len sees in the woman, his eyes, his neck.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Len says again, with even more feeling this time.

These are Mick’s parents.

These are - 

_Thereupon they took three flat stones, and set them on edge and drilled a hole in each stone –_

Maybe Len should have stayed to listen to the end of that story, but whatever. He’s even more glad now that he punched that skald right in his smirking face. 

“Mother,” Mick says. “Father.”

The woman looks up, and a smile crosses her weary face. “My little wildfire,” she says. “You have grown large and strong at last.”

Mick’s hand squeezes tightly on Len’s to the point of pain.

The man turns his head and slits his eyes open. “My boy,” he croaks, lips dry, throat echoing with the sound of screams through years uncounted. “My little bright one.”

“Father,” Mick says again, and his voice shakes. 

“Come and embrace me, little one,” his mother says. “I would give my soul to embrace you, but I cannot spare my hands.”

Mick doesn’t move at first, so Len untangles their fingers – it takes some effort – and gives Mick a little push in her direction. 

Mick looks at Len, eyes wide and lost. 

“Go on,” Len urges, then looks at the whole set up. Dropping his voice, he adds, “Ain’t there anything that can be done for him?”

Mick shakes his head mutely, but definitively, and then goes to his mother’s side, dropping to his knees and wrapping his arms around her.

“And when you are done,” Mick’s father says, amusement threading through his voice despite his circumstances, “you really _must_ introduce us to your companion. Though he will have to forgive our poor hospitality; I fear that I am a bit _tied up_ at the moment.”

Len really could get to like this guy. He’s a _dick_. He’s chained to a rock with a poisonous snake perched a meter above his head, and he’s _still_ a dick. And still making puns. Now that’s devotion to the art.

“My name’s Len,” he offers. Despite the association with his father, he tends to prefer to introduce himself by his last name in an attempt to keep some emotional distance. But, well – this _is_ Mick’s family, and so it’s his family too, he guesses.

Admittedly, this was _not_ what he was imagining, insofar as he ever imagined it. Which he hadn't. 

But to be fair, when was Mick ever what he imagined, what he _could_ have imagined? He’s always been so much more.

Besides, not like Len can really cast any stones. He’s an einherjar, now, and one that escaped; that’s not exactly normal either. 

Len shoves his hands into his pockets, fingering the feather he used as a token to escape. Yeah. Definitely not normal. 

“Len is my bride,” Mick says, and Len flushes. He’s never going to get used to Mick saying that, and it’s been – decades, now. Mick says it with such pride, though, that Len’s given up all attempts at suggesting alternatives. At least Mick’s usually content with saying ‘partner’. 

“You have found a bride!” Mick’s mother says, smile lighting up her face, and Mick’s father grins happily, too. “And are you happy?”

“No one could make me as happy as Len does,” Mick says, and means it, and Len flushes even more. 

“He seems very fine indeed,” Mick’s father offers, mischief dancing in his eyes. “You must tell us all of his good qualities – how you met, of course, and how you won him – we must judge ourselves how fine a bride you have won, for only the best is good enough for our boy –”

“You must release me, my son,” Mick’s mother says quietly.

Mick’s father’s smile fades and his eyes go wide, white all around. “Not yet,” he protests. “Not yet; surely it is not so soon –”

“If it were longer, I would have waited, my love,” Mick’s mother says. Her eyes are sad. Mick releases her, and his eyes are wide, too, fear and sadness and frustrated anger all. “I cannot delay further.”

Len looks from one to the other to Mick in bemusement. He’s not sure what they’re talking about. He should have listened to that story till the end, even if it _was_ about Mick and his brother being brutalized by uncaring gods. What is it that she has to do that makes them so scared? So sad? 

The snake shifts its great, shining coils, tensing like a spring about to pop, its dead-looking eyes glimmering in anticipation.

And then the woman _pulls away the bowl_ , fuck, _why?_

The poison, without any barrier, falls down straight onto the guy’s face, and he screams – his flesh _sizzles_ – the poison eats away at him like acid – his back arches in inhuman contortion – the ground shakes – 

The woman walks as quickly as she can manage towards the cliff, going to pour away the poison; she has to walk, not run, because she’ll spill it otherwise, because it _is_ acid, the poison, that’s why her fingers are so scarred – 

Mick gives a cry of pain, like he, too, is being burned alive by acid poison just watching this happen to his father, and Len always knew that Mick loved his father, not like Len and his own, and then Mick – because Mick’s a self-sacrificing idiot, and Len’s always known that too – Mick _sticks his own hands between the snake and his father_.

And then Mick screams.

He screams and he screams and he screams, but he keeps his hands cupped together, trying to catch as much of the poison as he can even as it drips down to his father's face.

He _screams_.

No.

_No._

Len did not come all this way, he did not survive the endless tedium of Valhalla, befriend the greatest and least of the creatures of the lands of the gods, did not capture Ratatoskr and learn his secrets, did not steal a feather from Muninn and evade the hounds of Tyr, walk the crooked paths and survive the dead wasteland of Jötunheim, only to find Mick and then _watch him suffer_.

Len dashes forward, desperate to find some way to help, something, anything to make it stop – it’s just chains, holding him down, surely, and Len knows chains, there must be some key, some lock, some way – he reaches for his pockets, his lockpicks, but he doesn’t have any lockpicks, they were all lost on his way to Valhalla and there weren’t any others there, but he _does_ have Muninn’s feather, which tapers to a long point at the end, maybe he can use that –

His fingers close over the feather, and suddenly he sees it, the knot at the high left corner, the lock that binds the chains together.

Len uses the feather and his nail in combination, desperately prying the lock open, and it’s only years of experience being cool in the face of all provocation, years of practicing on every type of lock in existence no matter how loud or noisy, no matter if the police are shooting at him or Mick’s lit the whole place on fire again, that lets him keep his focus now, with Mick screaming and Mick’s father screaming, too, as the poison burns through Mick’s hands and falls upon his face, Mick’s mother sobbing as she hurries to the edge –

Len pops the lock.

He grabs Mick’s father and pulls him away from the stones, from the snake, throws the two of them into Mick to get them away, away from the snake and the rocks and everything - and suddenly, abruptly, everything is dead quiet.

The screams stop, the sobs stop, the hissing stop, even the damnable plop-plop-plop of the snake’s venom stops. 

“What have you done?” Mick’s father asks blankly. His face is healing even as Len watches, much faster than before, zipping back up like a Hollywood special effect. Even Mick’s hands are healing impossible-fast, bubbling flesh calming, turning back from blistered red to his regular ruddy tone.

It’s only after a few moments of everybody staring at him – all of them, Mick and his mother and his father and even the _snake_ are all staring at him – that Len realizes that it wasn’t a rhetorical question.

“I…got you away from the snake?” he says hesitantly. He’s not sure why they’re all gaping at him.

“'None who wish to can release him',” Mick’s father quotes. “How did you get around that? No one who wants to let me out of my bindings can do so; that’s the spell and the curse that binds me.”

“Well, I didn’t,” Len says, blinking. “Not really. I mean. It wasn’t really my primary objective or anything.”

“What?”

“I didn’t particularly care one way or another about releasing you,” Len clarifies. “No offense, you seem cool and all, but I met you, like, five minutes ago and yes, your situation sucked and all, but I’m pretty used to ignoring terrible things.”

“Then what _did_ you want?” Mick’s father demands. 

“I wanted Mick to get his hands out from under that stupid snake,” Len says blankly. Isn’t it obvious? “And he wouldn’t do that if you were still there.”

They stare.

“It was _hurting him_ ,” Len emphasizes. 

They all stare at him a few seconds longer, and then Mick’s father starts to laugh, high and clear and incredibly amused. “Oh, my son,” he laughs, bending over at the waist. “My son, my son! What a bride you have brought before us!”

“Do you know what you just _did_?” Mick asks Len, his eyes still wide with shock.

“Uh,” Len says. He’s getting the sinking feeling that more just happened than he thinks what he did really warrants.

“Do you know what happens when he is released?” Mick’s voice actually cracks in the middle of that sentence. He’s clearly under a lot of stress; Len has no idea why. It’s not like Mick doesn’t know about Len’s skill at picking locks.

“I may have left before hearing the end of that story,” Len confesses.

Mick’s father howls with laughter.

“ _Do you even know what Ragnarök is_?” Mick shrieks. It's very unlike him.

“No one ever said!” Len says defensively. “All the other einherjar wouldn’t talk about it! And it’s not like I ever looked up Norse myths _before_ , okay? Other than, like, that one Xena episode…technically it was a Hercules episode, but it came on at the same time as the regular Xena episode…and I only saw half of that, too…”

Mick puts his head into his hands that way he always does when Len does something beyond belief. Mick’s mother wraps her arms around her son and hides her smile in his shoulder.

“What gold is this,” Mick’s father says, utterly delighted. “I would not change it for the world; this is the finest joke I have ever heard.”

“Lenny,” Mick says, his voice slightly muffled by his fingers. “Ragnarök is the end of the world.”

“What,” Len says.

“The sun turns black, earth sinks in the sea; the hot stars down from heaven are whirled; fierce grows the steam and the life-feeding flame, till fire leaps high about heaven itself,” Mick’s mother says, her voice lyrical. “Now Garm howls loud before Gnipahellir; the fetters will burst, and the wolf run free; much do I know, and more can see, of the fate of the gods…you didn’t know?”

Len opens his mouth, then closes it again when nothing seems to come out.

After a few seconds, he finds his voice. “So, uh,” he says. “Most awkward meet the parents ever, or most awkward meet the parents _ever_ , am I right?”

And Loki’s laughter fills the room.


End file.
